A clutch of leading companies pulled their planned advertising from the News
of the World this morning, following pressure from their customers to
dissociate themselves from the tabloid newspaper.

After most companies, on Tuesday, had said they were "considering their position", pending an investigation into the allegations of phone hacking, a number of high-profile names changed tack and announced they would not place adverts in the paper.

Halifax, the bank part-owned by the taxpayer, said it had decided to withdraw an advert they had planned to run this weekend. It was joined by Virgin Holidays, who had some classified adverts booked, Renault, Vauxhall, Mitsubishi and the Co-operative Group. Aldi, which only really advertises in the paper's Irish editions, also said it would not run any adverts in the near future.

Some of these companies, such as Renault, admitted they did not actually have any adverts booked for this weekend's newspaper, but they wanted to make clear that they were not advertising for the foreseeable future.

These moves followed Ford and Mumsnet, both of whom announced they were pulling advertising on Tuesday night. Mumsnet had planned a tie-up with Sky, the sister company of News of the World, running Sky advertising on its own website. The deal was worth about £20,000 to £30,000 the parenting website said.

The Co-op, which runs a supermarket, a bank, insurance and holidays, said it had reversed its initial decision to carry on advertising, after pressure from its customers.

Its statement said: "The Co-operative Group has taken the decision to suspend temporarily any further advertising and promotional activity with the News of the World until the outcome of the investigation is known.

"The Group is a consumer-owned business which adheres to strong ethical standards. These allegations have been met with revulsion by the vast majority of members who have contacted us."

An internet campaign, particularly on Twitter and Facebook, has encouraged consumers to contact the newspaper's advertisers, demanding they drop adverts. A list of the email addresses of the chief executives of the main advertisers have been circulating on the internet.

Lance Bradley, the managing director of Mitsubishi in Britain, told Radio 4's World at One, said he had acted after hearing the allegations that the newspaper had hacked into the answerphone of Milly Dowler, the schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered in 2002. He said: "We didn't want to having anything to do with a newspaper who would do this, or condone this."

It is unclear how much revenue News of the World makes each week from its advertising, but the cost of a full-page colour advert is £61,000, though many companies will receive a discount on this price. The total advertising revenue will be less than money made from selling papers. With a readership of 2.6 million and a cover price of £1, its makes £135 million a year from sales.

Claire Enders, a media analyst, told Sky News that the News of the World made about £30 million to £40 million a year from advertising each year.

Industry sources said that News of the World advertising department was telling its large-scale advertisers that it understood if they did not want to place adverts for a week or two, but added the newspaper was putting pressure on companies to "fall into line" in the long-term.

Apart from the Co-op and Aldi – which has pulled advertising from the paper's Irish editions – all of the supermarkets have said they will continue to advertise until any investigation is concluded.

And MediaWeek, the industry publication, said that none of the top ten largest advertisers in News of the World, including Tesco, Proctor & Gamble or O2, have pulled any adverts.

One supermarket executive, explaining why they would not pull advertising while the investigation was under way, said: "There is only one News of the World. No other paper reaches such a wide and big audience. I'd be very surprised if all these companies that have pulled advertising aren't running ads in two months' time."